Top: Anise
Heart: Tonka Bean, Rose de mai
Base: Leather, Suede, Nagarmotha

Nostalgia is a love song to the French-Alps village of Grasse, where Kismet-founder Shabnam Tavakol studied perfumery. Structured on poetry’s 14-line sonnet form, the fragrance is composed of 14 raw materials.

Nostalgia’s first stanza is based on seductive suede, saffron, and leather accords, evoking Grasse’s roots as an epicenter of tanning in the Middle Ages. Heart notes include Rose de mai and nagarmotha as a nod to Grasse’s rise as the world’s perfume capital in the 18th century—home to hillside flower fields that meet the Mediterranean Sea. At its volta, Nostalgia turns upwards towards anisic top notes inspired by Pastis—the complex, herbal aperitif with which Shabnam developed an intimate relationship during after-school hours at Grasse’s sole watering hole, Le Crystal.

At once leathery, musky, floral, herbal, smoky, and spicy, Nostalgia is a unisex scent intoxicating to men, women, and everyone in between.

Embrace your solitude and love it. Endure the pain it causes, and try to sing out with it. For those near to you are distant.
—Rainer Maria Rilke